TXTING & LTRCY

Publication date: 2/05/2008

Renowned linguist and Honorary Professor of Linguistics at Bangor University, David Crystal will discuss 'texting' and literacy at the TR Miles lecture Txtng and Ltrcy on Thurs 22 May at 5.30 in Bangor University's Main Arts Lecture Theatre. All are welcome to attend this public lecture.

Text messaging has had a very bad press, with some commentators calling it a 'linguistic disaster' and predicting 'the end of literacy as we know it'. In this talk, David Crystal discusses the origins and motivations lying behind texting, dispels the myths surrounding it, and draws on numerous studies to illustrate its linguistic reality. Texting turns out to be not as revolutionary as people think: the distinctive abbreviations have in fact a long history. His conclusion is that, far from being a disaster, text messaging actually helps rather than hinders literacy.

David Crystal is honorary professor of linguistics at Bangor University, and works from his home in Holyhead as a writer, lecturer, and broadcaster on language and linguistics, and as an editor of general reference works, both in traditional publishing and online. His books related to the subject of his lecture include Language and the Internet (Cambridge, 2nd edition 2006), A Glossary of Netspeak and Textspeak (Edinburgh, 2004), and Txtng: the Gr8 Db8, to be published by Oxford in July.